October and November wore themselves away, and the days went by, the one
very like the other. Mrs. Otway, after her long hours of work, or of
official visiting among the soldiers' and sailors' wives and mothers,
fell into the way of going out late in the afternoon for a walk by
herself. She had grown to dread with a nervous dislike the constant
meeting with acquaintances and neighbours, the usual rather futile
exchange of remarks about the War, or about the local forms of war and
charitable work in which she and they were now all engaged. The
stillness and the solitariness of the evening walk soothed her sore and
burdened heart.
Often she would walk to Dorycote and back, feeling that the darkened
streets--for Witanbury had followed the example of London--and, even
more, the country roads beyond, were haunted, in a peaceful sense, by
the presence of the man who had so often taken that same way from his
house to hers.
It was during one of these evening walks that there came to her a gleam
of hope and light, and from a source from which she would never have
expected it to come.
She was walking swiftly along on her way home, going across the edge of
the Market Square, when she heard herself eagerly hailed with "Is it
Mrs. Otway?" She stopped, and answered, not very graciously, "Yes, I'm
Mrs. Otway--who is it?"
There came a bubble of laughter, and she knew that this was a very old
acquaintance indeed, a Mrs. Riddick, whom she had not seen for some
time.
"I don't wonder you didn't know me! It's impossible to see anything by
this light. I've been having such an adventure! I only came back from
Holland yesterday. I went to meet a young niece of mine there--you know,
the girl who was in Germany so long."
"In Germany?" Mrs. Otway turned round eagerly. "Is she with you now? How
I should like to see her!"
"I'm afraid you can't do that. She's gone to Scotland. I sent her off
there last night. Her parents have been nearly frantic about her!"
"Did she see--did she hear anything of the English prisoners while she
was in Germany?" Mrs. Otway's voice sounded strangely pleading in the
darkness, and the other felt a little surprised.
"Oh, no! She was virtually a prisoner herself. But I hear a good deal of
information is coming through--I mean unofficial information about our
prisoners. My sister--you know, Mrs. Vereker--is working at that place
they've opened in London to help people whose friends are prisoners in
Germany. She says they sometimes obtain wonderful results. They work in
with the Geneva Red Cross, and from what I can make out, it's really
better to go there than to write to the Foreign Office. I went and saw
my sister yesterday, when I was coming through London. I was really most
interested in all she told me--such pathetic, strange stories, such
heart-breaking episodes, and then now and again something so splendid
and happy! A girl came to them a fortnight ago in dreadful trouble,
every one round her saying her lover had been killed at Mons, though she
herself hoped against hope. Well, only yesterday morning they were able
to wire to her that he was safe and well, being kindly treated too, in a
fortress, far away, close to the borders of Prussia and Poland! Wasn't
that splendid?"
"What is the address of the place," asked Mrs. Otway in a low tone,
"where Mrs. Vereker works?"
"It's in Arlington Street--No. 20, I think."
* * * * *
Mrs. Otway hastened on, her heart filled with a new, eager hope. Oh, if
she could only go up now, this evening, to London! Then she might be at
20, Arlington Street, the first thing in the morning.
Alas, she knew that this was not possible; every hour of the next
morning was filled up.
There was no one to whom she could delegate her morning round among
those soldiers' mothers and wives with whom she now felt in such close
touch and sympathy. But she might possibly escape the afternoon
committee meeting, at which she was due, if Miss Forsyth would only let
her off. The ladies of Witanbury were very much under the bondage of
Miss Forsyth, and subject to her will; none more so than the
good-tempered, yielding Mary Otway.
Unluckily one of those absurd little difficulties which are always
cropping up at committees was on the agenda for to-morrow afternoon, and
Miss Forsyth was counting on her help to quell a certain troublesome
person. Still, she might go now, on her way home, and see if Miss
Forsyth would relent.
Miss Forsyth lived in a beautiful old house which, though its approach
was in a narrow street, yet directly overlooked at the back the great
green lawns surrounding the cathedral.
The house had been left to her many years ago, but she had never done
anything to it. Unaffected by the many artistic and other crazes which
had swept over the country since then, it remained a strange mixture of
beauty and ugliness. Miss Forsyth loved the beauty of her house, and she
put up with what ugliness there was because of the major part of her
income, which was not very large, had to be spent, according to her
theory of life, on those less fortunate than herself.
At the present moment all her best rooms, those rooms which overlooked
her beloved cathedral, had been given up by her to a rather
fretful-natured and very dissatisfied Belgian family, and so she had
taken up her quarters on the darker and colder side of her house, that
which overlooked the street.
It was there, in a severe-looking study on the ground floor, that Mrs.
Otway found her this evening.
As her visitor was ushered in by the cross-looking old servant who was
popularly supposed to be the only person of whom Miss Forsyth stood in
fear, she got up and came forward, a very kindly, welcoming look on her
plain face.
"Well, Mary," she said, "what's the matter now? Mrs. Purlock drunk
again, eh?"
"Well, yes--as a matter of fact the poor woman was quite drunk this
morning! But I've really come to know if you can spare me to-morrow
afternoon. I want to go to London on business. I was also wondering if
you know of any nice quiet hotel or lodging near Piccadilly--I should
prefer a lodging--where I could spent two nights?"
"Near Piccadilly? Yes, of course I do--in Half-Moon Street. I'll engage
two rooms for you. And as for to-morrow, I can spare you quite well. In
fact I shall probably manage better alone. Can't you go up by that nice
early morning train, my dear?"
Mrs. Otway shook her head. "No, I can't possibly get away before the
afternoon. You see I must look after Mrs. Purlock. She got into rather
bad trouble this morning. And oh, Miss Forsyth, I'm so _sorry_ for her!
She believes her two boys are being starved to death in Germany.
Unfortunately she knows that woman whose husband signed his letter 'Your
loving Jack Starving.' It's thoroughly upset Mrs. Purlock, and if, as
they all say, drink drowns thought and makes one feel happy, can we
wonder at all the drinking that goes on just now? But I'm going to try
to-morrow morning to arrange for her to go away to a sister--a very
sensible, nice woman she seems, who certainly won't let her do anything
of the sort."
"Surely you're rather inconsistent?" said Miss Forsyth briskly. "You
spoke only a minute ago as if you almost approved of drunkenness," but
there was an intelligent twinkle in her eye.
Mrs. Otway smiled, but it was a very sad smile. "You know quite well,
dear Miss Forsyth, that I didn't mean _that_! Of course I don't approve,
I only meant that--that I understand." She waited a moment, and then
added, quietly, and with a little sigh, "So you see I can't go up to
town to-morrow morning. What I want to do there will wait quite well
till the afternoon."
Miss Forsyth accompanied her visitor into the hall--the old
eighteenth-century hall which was so exquisitely proportioned, but the
walls of which were covered with the monstrously ugly mid-Victorian
marble paper she much disliked, but never felt she could afford to
change as long as it still looked so irritatingly "good" and clean. She
opened the front door on to the empty, darkened street; and then, to
Mrs. Otway's great surprise, she suddenly bent forward and kissed her
warmly.
"Well, my dear," she exclaimed, "I'm glad to have seen you even for a
moment, and I hope your business, whatever it be, will be successful. I
want to tell you something, here and now, which I've never said to you
yet, long as we've known one another!"
"Yes, Miss Forsyth?" Mrs. Otway looked up surprised--perhaps a little
apprehensive as to what was coming.
"I want to tell you, Mary, that to my mind you belong to the very small
number of people, of my acquaintance at any rate, who shall see God."
Mrs. Otway was startled and touched by the other's words, and yet, "I
don't quite know what you mean?" she faltered--and she really didn't.
"Don't you?" said Miss Forsyth drily. "Well, I think Mrs. Purlock, and a
good many other unhappy women in Witanbury, could tell you."
* * * * *
Late in the next afternoon, after leaving the little luggage she had
brought with her at the old-fashioned lodgings where she found that Miss
Forsyth had made careful arrangements for her comfort, even to ordering
what she should have for dinner, Mrs. Otway made her way, on foot, into
Piccadilly, and thence into quiet Arlington Street.
There it was very dark--too dark to see the numbers on the doors of the
great houses which loomed up to her right.
Bewildered and oppressed, she touched a passer-by on the arm. "Could you
tell me," she said, "which is No. 20?" And he, with the curious
inability of the average Londoner to tell the truth or to acknowledge
ignorance in such a case, at once promptly answered, "Yes, miss. It's
that big house standing back here, in the courtyard."
She walked through the gate nearest to her, and so up to a portico.
Then, after waiting for a moment, she rang the bell.
The moments slipped by. She waited full five minutes, and then rang
again. At last the door opened.
"Is this the place," she said falteringly, "where one can make inquiries
as to the prisoners of war in Germany?" And the person who opened the
door replied curtly, "No, it's next door to the right. A lot of people
makes that mistake. Luckily the family are away just now--or it would be
even a greater botheration than it is!"
Sick at heart, she turned and walked around the paved courtyard till she
reached the street. Then she turned to her right. A door flush on the
street was hospitably open, throwing out bright shafts of light into the
darkness. Could it be--she hoped it was--here?
For a moment she stood hesitating in the threshold. The large hall was
brilliantly lit up, and at a table there sat a happy-faced, busy-looking
little Boy Scout. He, surely, would not repulse her? Gathering courage
she walked up to him.
"Is this the place," she asked, "where one makes inquiries about
prisoners of war?"
He jumped up and saluted. "Yes, madam," he said civilly. "You've only
got to go up those stairs and then round the top, straight along. There
are plenty of ladies up there to show you the way."
As she walked towards the great staircase, and as her eyes fell on a
large panoramic oil painting of a review held in a historic English park
a hundred years before, she remembered that it was here, in this very
house, that she had come to a great political reception more than twenty
years ago--in fact just after her return from Germany. She had been
taken to it by James Hayley's parents, and she, the happy, eager girl,
had enjoyed every moment of what she had heard with indignant surprise
some one describe as a boring function.
As she began walking up the staircase, there rose before her a vision of
what had been to her so delightful and brilliant a scene--the women in
evening dress and splendid jewels; the men, many of them in uniform or
court dress; all talking and smiling to one another as they slowly made
their way up the wide, easy steps.
She remembered with what curiosity and admiration she had looked at the
figure of her host. There he had stood, a commanding, powerful, slightly
stooping figure, welcoming his guests. For a moment she had looked up
into his bearded face, and met his heavy-lidded eyes resting on her
bright young face, with a half-smile of indulgent amusement at her look
of radiant interest and happiness.
This vivid recollection of that long-forgotten Victorian "crush" had a
good effect on Mary Otway. It calmed her nervous tremor, and made her
feel, in a curious sense, at home in that great London house.
Running round the top of the staircase was a narrow way where girls
sitting at typewriters were busily working. But they had all kind,
intelligent faces, and they all seemed anxious to help and speed her on
her way.
"Mrs. Vereker? Oh yes, you'll find her at once if you go along that
gallery and open the door at the end."
She walked through into a vast room where a domed and painted ceiling
now looked down on a very curious scene. With the exception of some
large straight settees, all the furniture which had once been in this
great reception-room had been cleared away. In its place were large
office tables, plain wooden chairs, and wire baskets piled high with
letters and memoranda. The dozen or so people there were all intent on
work of some sort, and though now and again some one got up and walked
across to ask a question of a colleague, there was very little coming or
going. Personal inquirers generally came early in the day.
As she stood just inside the door, Mary Otway knew that it was here,
twenty years ago, that she had seen the principal guests gathered
together. She recalled the intense interest, the awe, the sympathy with
which she had looked at one figure in that vanished throng. It had been
the figure of a woman dressed in the deep mourning of a German widow,
the severity of the costume lightened only by the beautiful Orders
pinned on the breast.
At the time she, the girl of that far-off day, had only just come back
from Germany, and the Imperial tragedy, which had as central figure one
so noble and so selfless, had moved her eager young heart very deeply.
She remembered how hurt she had felt at hearing her cousin mutter to his
wife, "I'm sorry she is here. She oughtn't to have come to this kind of
thing. Royalties, especially foreign Royalties, should have no
politics." And with what satisfaction she had heard Mrs. Hayley's
spirited rejoinder: "What nonsense! She hasn't come because it's
political, but because it's English. She loves England, and everything
to do with England!"
The vision faded, and she walked forward into the strangely changed
room.
"Can I speak to Mrs. Vereker?" she asked, timidly addressing one of the
ladies nearest the door. Yet it was with unacknowledged relief that she
received the answer: "I'm so sorry, but Mrs. Vereker isn't here. She
left early this afternoon. Is there anything I can do for you? Do you
want to make inquiries about a prisoner?"
And then, as Mrs. Otway said, "Yes," the speaker went on quickly, "I
think I shall do just as well if you will kindly give me the
particulars. Let us come over here and sit down; then we shan't be
disturbed."
Mrs. Otway looked up gratefully into the kind face of the woman speaking
to her. It was a comfort to know that she was going to tell her private
concerns to a stranger, and not to the sister of an acquaintance living
at Witanbury.
The few meagre facts were soon told, and then she gave her own name and
address as the person to whom the particulars, if any came through, were
to be forwarded.
"I'll see that the inquiries are sent on to Geneva to-night. But you
mustn't be disappointed if you get no news for a while. Sometimes news
is a very long time coming through, especially if the prisoner was
wounded, and is still in hospital." The stranger added, with real
sympathy in her voice, "I'm afraid you're very anxious, Mrs. Otway. I
suppose Major Guthrie is your brother?"
And then the other answered quietly, "No, he's not my brother. Major
Guthrie and I are engaged to be married."
The kind, sweet face, itself a sad and anxious face, changed a
little--it became even fuller of sympathy than it had been before. "You
must try and keep up courage," she exclaimed. "And remember one
thing--if Major Guthrie was really severely wounded, he's probably being
very well looked after." She waited a moment, and then went on, "In any
case, you haven't the anguish of knowing that he's in perpetual danger;
my boy is out there, so I know what it feels like to realize that."
There was a moment of silence, and then, "I wonder," said Mrs. Otway,
"if you would mind having the inquiries telegraphed to-night?" She
opened her bag. "I brought a five-pound note----"
But the other shook her head. "Oh, no. You needn't pay anything," she
said. "We're always quite willing to telegraph if there's any good
reason for doing so. But you know it's very important that the name
should be correctly spelt, and the particulars rightly transmitted.
That's why it's really better to write. But of course I'll ask them to
telegraph to you at once if they get any news here on a day or at a time
I happen to be away."
Together they walked to the door of the great room, and the woman whose
name she was not to know for a long time, and who was the first human
being to whom she had told her secret, pressed her hand warmly.
Quietly Mrs. Otway walked through into the gallery, and then she burst
out crying like a child. It was with her handkerchief pressed to her
face that she walked down the gallery, and so round to the great
staircase. No one looked at her as she passed so woefully by; they were
all only too well used to such sights. But before she reached the front
door she managed to pull herself together, and was able to give the
jolly little Boy Scout a friendly farewell nod.